the good old days

For snarky humor aimed at the clumsy advertising of yesteryear, Kitchen Retro is always good for a laugh.

What 1936 Betty Crocker advised us: Men are incompetent housekeepers who transition from mooching off their mother to mooching off their wife, and of course are never satisfied with the cooking of the wife.

Which, if you think about it, means that cooking skills are quantitatively getting worse with every generation. In another few centuries, we’ll all be putting dirt on plates and sobbing apologies for not being able to get the worms “just like mother used to make”.

Maybe I should stop thinking about it.

Anyway, the biscuit-loving husband picture is a riot. Can’t say it much better than Lidian did…

Check him out, holding up the Bisquick biscuit and grinning. Getting to be a swell cook? Getting to be? How many goddamn batches of biscuits does a person have to make and shove down his throat before he coughs up an unadulterated compliment!

Gee, isn’t that swell?

Speaking from personal experience: this is totally what women in a factory look like.

Well, nowadays you really have to wear steel-toed leather boots for safety, but other than that… totally.

Quick — what is the first word that pops into your mind when looking at these images? (Hint: it’s just one word!)

I’m willing to bet it was NOT “constipation.”

First one from Vintage Scans, second from Found in Mom’s Basement.

Having been out of town for ages, then having relatives visiting us, it’s taking days to catch up on my RSS feeds. I had no idea I read so much stuff. Good thing I’m being downsized, I’ll have more time for reading random blogs!

Two nice short olde tyme things from Modern Mechanix… Leg Falsies from 1953 (as if small boobs weren’t enough, now we need to worry about curvaceous calf muscles) or an 1950 ad for Americanized Judo (you don’t want to accidentally learn that Godless Commie Judo, after all).

flesh-colored Band-Aid (from 1952) [found on Found in Mom's Basement] and
flesh-colored Soul-Aid (from the 1980’s) [found on Found in Mom's Basement, originally from Retrocrush]

The modern clear Band-Aid is the best way to please absolutely every possible skin tone, even those of us with freckles — no point in having boxes of various shades when you can just go translucent!

Of course, the adhesive bandages my kids get with their various vaccinations are all covered with Sponge Bob Squarepants or Disney Princesses or (AAAAAAAHHHHH!) Elmo; since my children are NOT naturally patterned with the latest cartoon character craze, I’m quite happy that they don’t match their bandage.

Successful companies are ones that satisfy their customer’s wants, needs and desires. The data clearly show that if your customer base is global and diverse and you reflect their perspectives and their knowledge, you’re going to have a better chance for success. The closer you get to their emotional and intellectual roots, the better you’re going to communicate with them.

So what’s the business case for diversity? It’s the only business case we need—the only way to satisfy diverse customers is to include their perspectives inside the company. This is especially true for Ford, because we probably have the most diverse set of customers in the world.

From Ford CEO Alan Mulally, posted on Ford’s website.
Mr. Mulally might wish to have a discussion with J. W. Horne, who is apparently the advertiser representing the Kieffe & Sons Ford dealership to the public. (Note, anything in brackets are my comments, as are the ellipses. I didn’t want to bore you with the whole thing, feel free to go to the source and read it yourself.)

For those of you out there in never never land or la la land or maybe underground and under the radar [?] who are so called non believers, I am the man who wrote and recorded the Kieffe and sons spot. In fact I write and produce all of the Kieffe and Sons ford spots…. I am a believer and I am pretty sure that most everyone at Kieffe and Sons ford are also believers…. Believers do not have to justify their existence…. I support everyones right to think and do and live as they wish. I do not condem [sic] any American that disagrees with me…. if you were careful enough to listen to the entire spot you would have heard me say that to the good people at Kieffe and Sons ford “everyone one is welcome at the dealership whether you are a believer or not, you are still welcome…. We do business according to the rules of the good book.. if you are offended by that, then you are offended by the truth…. If you are offended, well like I said in the commercial.. thats tough.

Even disregarding factual errors in the radio spot and Horne’s masturbatory self-justification, he’s missed the point that it’s not just atheists who are angry; there are plenty of Christians who heard it and were disgusted (not to mention the non-Christian-non-atheist population of the country). Horne’s non-apology insists that Kieffe and Sons will still welcome anybody to the dealership, meaning the ad (paraphrased) told non-Christians, “Sit down and shut up. Then, come buy our cars and we’ll pretend to respect you!” How open-minded of him. Flaunting majority status while deigning to take a minority’s money is not an apology, nor a way to gain business (except from bigots).

Owner Rick Kieffe paints a different picture, however.

This statement is provided in response to reaction prompted by a radio commercial that Kieffe & Sons Ford recently ran referring to issues of God in our schools and on our money.

For 15 years, Kieffe and Sons Ford has run ad campaigns that focus on current events. We have chosen to do this rather than presenting typical car sales ads. We do this through an agency that develops the material and sends us a package of commercials to review. From this, we select commercials that we distribute to area radio stations…. Regrettably, the commercial that has prompted the current objection to religious sentiment (”Under God”, “In We Trust”) was not closely reviewed by our dealership before it went live. The commercial has been replaced. We apologize to all who were offended. It is Kieffe and Sons’ intention to support America and the freedoms that make this country great.

All he’s done is replace the commercial? What I want to know is whether Kieffe intends to continue using Horne’s advertising company. If so… well, it’s not a sign of real concern, is it?

The fact that this fiasco was started by one short-sighted bigot in Oklahoma who’s not even a direct Ford employee is disappointing. UPDATE: Turns out Kieffe is, actually, quite happy with what Horne said, and was “forced” to apologize by Ford corporate. So, it’s a direct Ford employee making himself look like a bigoted ass, and making Ford look like it doesn’t believe in a diverse customer base.

Ford has a lot bigger problems to solve, and needs to get this off their backs, or it will continue to degrade their public image.

• Like I said, I am in the market for a new car…. I have not thought about dealers yet, though I’m looking forward to the next generation of hybrids. But I do know who I won’t be dropping $30K with. –Way of the Woo
• I certainly will never buy a car from him and would certainly not recommend him to anyone. –Underground Unbeliever
• There’s not much we can do, except boycott Kieffe and Sons Ford, and heck, boycott Ford altogether — Ford seems unconcerned about the fact that one of their dealerships is using bigotry to sell cars. –Pharyngula

It’s not just Kieffe and Sons that will feel fallout (including rude, stupid, shortsighted people calling them up and swearing, does that help anything, jerks?) — it’s also hitting Ford.

I hope to see something from Mulally reinforcing the apology, perhaps even [UPDATE: hard to reinforce Kieffe's non-apology] broadly emphasizing that Ford as a corporation DOES want to have a diverse customer base. Without that, he’s making it very hard for me to justify leaving Ford vehicles on my list of possible future purchases — and I really, really want American-made cars. I don’t live in Mojave and have no way to personally change the income of Kieffe and Sons, but I do patronize my local Ford dealerships — or, at least, I have in the past.

Should I continue to give you business, Mr. Mulally?

… Kleenex invented the pop-up tissue box: when you pull a Kleenex out, another comes up after it. This ad from 1950 neatly illustrates the point.

Only wonderful, soft Kleenex serves you one-a-time!

Instead of many, you get just one… and save!

Unless you’re my mother, who pulls at least three each time she wipes her grandkids’ noses, then tosses them all so that one teeny booger doesn’t re-infect somebody. Yes, Mom, I said BOOGER. It’s not a bad word.

The 1928 pop-up tissue invention was a brilliant feature, quickly and easily providing a clean, soft tissue — but, another unforeseen bonus, it’s also a way to amuse an infant for a surprisingly long time. They pull a tissue out, and there’s still a tissue there. They pull another one, there’s still a tissue there. Pull another one, OMG IT’S STILL THERE! This is absolutely amazing when you’re a year old — an infinite supply of tissues.

Unfortunately, I will not let my son remove one hundred Kleenexes from their tidy little box and scatter them all over the floor. This makes him very angry, probably financing some future therapist’s world cruise.

Dear Canadian Club Whiskey,

Your advertising department is a pack of shortsighted fools.

My mother’s father actually did drink whiskey regularly. Very regularly. In fact, he was severely alcoholic. And when he drank, he was abusive. The emotional impact of that has scarred my mother, aunt, and uncles for the rest of their lives. So “YOUR DAD DRANK LOTS OF OUR WHISKEY” gives me a strong, visceral, anti-your-whiskey reaction.

Beyond that personal experience: I wouldn’t want to be like any of the people in your ads. I wouldn’t want to be a male slut. I wouldn’t want to be the old-time manly man. Part of this is because I just haven’t got the manly equipment, being a woman and all — but trust me, even if I was a man, those are not characters I would ever aspire to.

I have multiple relatives who are mildly or wildly fond of whiskey; I will not be buying any of them Canadian Club as a gift ever again. I will not have it in my own house under any circumstances; any bottles in our cabinet will be poured down the drain, and it will never be purchased by us again. My liquor budget for gifts and personal use is no more than a couple hundred dollars a year, but I doubt I’m the only one who’s strongly offended by your advertisements. Hopefully the loss of customers will far outweigh any gains.

Sincerely Loathing Your Company,
Me

Positively, though, Project: Canadian Club - Your Mom Had Groupies has put a beautifully inclusive, humorous spin on this otherwise pointless, misogynistic, homophobic ad campaign. One of my favorites so far:

It’s a 1930’s driver’s safety film? Of course it’s made by Chevy! Ah, Jam Handy, you’ve done it again with 1935’s Safe Roads.

When Big Brother crashes Little Brother’s toy trains, Grandpa takes the opportunity to encourage Big Brother to be a safe driver. Of course, he’s trying to correlate train safety to automotive safety, so the analogy gets stretched pretty thin.

Most interesting, Grandpa asserts that, when safety rules are followed, “these modern cars are a lot safer than slower cars of yesterday.” Try to back THAT one up with some statistics. If Fast New Car A and Slow Old Car B are driven by the same person, the fast one is safer? (Maybe if you’re being chased by a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex. Remember Ian Malcolm muttering, “Must go faster!” in the back of that Jeep? If he’d been in a 1935 Chevy, he wouldn’t have been worried at all!)

Of course, the safety recommendation is following the rules, the Chevy advertising is zippy cars. See how hard it is to make driver’s safety films at the same time as advertisements? I wouldn’t have wanted to be the guy who had to write these scripts.

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Mostly, sit back and enjoy the lovely vintage shots of a time when trains were the way to travel long distances. Railroad enthusiasts will be in ecstasy. Drivers hoping for driving advice will be disappointed.

For years as a child, I didn’t really understand the Morton Salt slogan, “When it rains, it pours.” I thought it was a strange reference to the familiar idiom: after a long spell of nothing happening, then everything happens at once. What this had to do with table salt, who knows.

However, looking at some of their old ads today made me realize they were saying “when it’s raining outside [or just humid], your Morton Salt will still pour from the shaker.” That was one of those “OHHHHhhhh…” moments… followed closely by a “well, duh” moment.

One of their 1926 ads (see left) brought home another weird point: goiters. Most children who manage to stay awake through elementary school health class learn that very small quantities of iodine are vital to the health of the thyroid gland; without it, it will swell and you’ll have a big goiter in your neck. To the modern student, this is weird and strange. But in the 1920’s, goiters were a lot more common, and Morton’s inclusion of iodine was a pretty good innovation.

(On a related note, I always considered gout to be one of those diseases gone by the wayside, back in the age of Ben Franklin — but a few guys in the factory here have it. Weird!)

We’ll probably be visiting Chicago in the next couple months, and we’ll get to drive by the big MORTON SALT factory with the famous girl-under-umbrella spilling her salt all over the place. Poor kid, she’ll get home and Mother will be furious that the salt is all gone and now the family will all get goiters because the iodized salt is all over the street…